{This is one from the archives. This one originally dates from 2009 and was finished in 2018 after several previous attempts that got nowhere}

It was the height of the morning rush hour and the crowds of commuters were on their way to work.

Pierre Clement was one of the commuters who in their tens of thousands made their way from Waterloo to their place of work five mornings a week, week in, week out, year in, year out. Most of the time, he was just another face in the throng of people using the station.

Pierre had been living in London for more than ten years and ran a Wine Importers that was based on the western edge of the ‘Square Mile’. He waited patiently for the No 243 bus to take him to his stop on Theobalds Rd. He was not in a good mood that morning as another passenger on the 07:45 from Guildford had spilt their coffee when the train stopped at Effingham Junction with an unexpected jolt. Quite a lot of it ended up on the previously immaculately pressed trousers of his business suit. Several other passengers did a good bit of ‘effing’ of their own.

Mr. Glome’s Follow Up

I made it through all the Monday classes. Worked on what was becoming a full page colored pencil drawing in Design, failed to come up with a monologue in Drama, Played Exploding Kittens (SFW edition on NSFW cards) at lunch, and managed to give as well as I got in English.

I should probably mention something about Intro to Physics. Yeah, I should really get around to that.

 
Charlotte gains a friend who helps her accept herself. But time moves on, and Charlotte has to prepare for the future. Where will she go to school? Poor girl, there is being at a loss, and then there is being Lost!

What is happening to the male employees at the new store in town? Suddenly they find themselves preferring women's underclothes!

I wondered if she’d told the others of my past, or if she’d do that in school if ever I fell foul of her. I could really do with something powerful on her, that I could use to counter blackmail, sort of like I’d read about with the Cold War, where they called it, ‘Assured Mutual Destruction’.

I felt as if the world had become a deep, deep pit. I was at the bottom of it, it was dark and the sides were smooth. There were no lights nor ladders. Each day an angel in the form of my mother would come and make me eat and hold me. I would cry and cling to her. I had no energy, no hope, no anything.

Charlotte’s Tale.
Part 8.
by Angharad

So there I was sailing along, with my return ticket on the Titanic, totally unaware of such things as the existence of icebergs, let alone my impending impact. It seemed, I had all the mental acuity of ‘Homer Simpson’, at times anyway.

Charlotte’s Tale.
Part 5.
by,
Angharad.

Princess for Hire

By Melanie Ezell

Daniel Henderson has managed to beat the odds and been accepted into Kingston Academy, one of the best private high schools in the country. However, when Daniel is invited to take part in a special program, he learns that there's more to the school than he had thought...

NOTE: This story is loosely -- as in VERY loosely -- based on the manga/anime "Princess Princess." After the initial concept, any similarities are mostly coincidental, unless they aren't. (Puzzle that out why don't ya.)

Part 1: The Princess Arrives

-1-

Homecoming Princess (Revised)   Part 5 By Arecee   Edited by Holly Hart & Sephrena Miller

The bus rumbled closer and was slowing down to our stop. I felt a twinge of fear as I realized my test of passing as a girl in front of the people I had to go to school with every day was upon me.

The doors opened and I just gulped as I took my first step up onto it. Mrs. Uttman, our driver, looked speechless as she looked me up and down as if I was some oddity. I felt a little queasy and just grabbed the first seat pole and finished pulling myself up into the aisle.

“Well Good Morning to you Lynn! My My! You look wonderful today! It’s about time you decided to be who you really are.”

I blushed furiously as I knew a lot of the other kids on the bus heard her and even now they were all looking at me in bewilderment. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard her say. SHE thought I had been a girl all along! Omigod! Did Lynn the boy ever really exist?

Laurenina
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Dolores collapsed in a heap on the sofa in the dressing room.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can handle,” she moaned. “This show is killing me. I don’t know how much longer my voice can take this.”

The Death of Diana

A Short Story

By Maryanne Peters

The Stand In
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I slumped into the house and my mother came out of the kitchen as I did so. “What’s the matter, darling?” she asked but I didn’t want to talk, I was too upset. I ignored her and went up to my room and shut the door.

The headmaster walked over, so I pretended I was just mingling with my mother, walking away as he approached. “Christine, thank you for your help in making the concert a success.” He led me away from the main crowd. “You’re at St Margaret’s?”

“Yes.”

A Trans teenager has gone missing and there's a scramble to track her down before she is lost forever. Paralegal Elizabeth Gallagher is recruited to help given she is a Trans woman and may know more about the clues found regarding the teens online activities. With time running out, a past Elizabeth wants to keep hidden, and the unexpected kindness of a computer forensics specialist - Elizabeth navigates a mystery, while trying not to pick at her own unseen scars and wanting more than a glimpse of normalcy as a woman.